


Decisions

by strikeyourcolors



Series: Always Been [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bad Decisions, Blood and Injury, Gen, Intersex Omegas, Medical Procedures, Neglect, Other, Self-Acceptance, Self-Denial, Young Jason Todd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 05:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikeyourcolors/pseuds/strikeyourcolors
Summary: Jason Todd's life as an omega got a rocky start, but he learned to make peace with it. His decisions aren't necessarily good, but they could have been a lot worse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of the prequel to "True to Me" or in other words the background information that never felt appropriate to shovel into the main storyline. It can definitely be read without reading the main story and stands well as a simple one-shot. I wanted a brief focus on how Jason deals with his secondary sex and navigates the world before he's actually an adult and here we are! 
> 
> This is divided into two chapters for convenience and length. The next one will be a similar one-shot about Tim. The first chapter does not contain any blood/medical things/violence/mentions of underage sex and it's relatively clean. Thanks for the reviews/kudos/bookmarks and, as always, offer up suggestions if there are particular themes you do want explored. I love hearing all of your ideas and trying to build on them.

It starts as an ache, low and fierce in his gut. 

Jason is at school. At first, he thinks it has to do with the chemistry class coming up in the afternoon. With the fact that there's a quiz today and Jason still isn't entirely sure how to balance a chemical equation. _It's no wonder you can't do it,_ The student teacher he approached about it told him. There was some kind of pity in her eyes that Jason hated. He hated that she knew, after not even being here for a month. She knew Bruce Wayne's ward and she knew he hadn't been in school for years, prior to coming to this one. _With your background you should be proud of yourself for even taking this class._  

Jason had walked out then, without ever setting up a tutoring session. He's about to pay for it by sitting in class and staring at a paper with a bunch of questions he won't know the answers to. 

By lunch time he's cramping badly and it scares him a little. He'd taken a few hard punches to the abdomen last night while Robin was securing some kidnappers. What if something has ruptured? The pain is nagging, fierce and low, and it's paired with sensations that Jason isn't sure he wants to recognize. He goes to the school nurse. 

She wants to send him back to class. She's familiar with kids in general faking illness to get out of school and Jason had a particularly bad bout of doing exactly that for his first month enrolled in classes. It had taken Jason complaining about a headache and being sent back to class where he promptly passed out for Alfred to tell the school in no uncertain terms that they were to call him whenever Jason felt it necessary to go. 

That time had been an undiagnosed concussion. He and Alfred worked out a deal where Jason wouldn't ask to leave school so often and Alfred wouldn't ask questions when he did. 

But this time, Alfred does ask a question when he arrives with the car. "Master Jason. Are you alright?"

Jason is doubled over, clutching his stomach. Alfred has to help him into the car. "Don't know what's wrong," He babbles. He feels dizzy and hot and sick. 

"I believe you will be quite alright," Alfred reassures him. He loads him into the front of the car instead of the back, and Jason appreciates that. "You're experiencing the basic biological function of an omega, which I understand can be unpleasant, but give it a week and you will once more be right as rain."

Heat. He's going into heat. Jason wallows in misery and pain all the way back to the Manor.  Alfred puts him to bed with a variety of books and a care basket of food and bottled drinks. That night Jason's fever tops a hundred and five and he wakes up to Leslie Thompkins hovering over his bed. 

"This isn't normal, Bruce," Leslie tells him, not seeming to realize that Jason has stirred. 

"It's a heat," Bruce replies. Bruce isn't in the room. Bruce is in the hallway. Jason wonders if he stinks that much that Bruce can't stand to even be near him. He wants to apologize. They had plans tonight. He's ruined Batman's plans. 

"He's having hot flashes. He's putting on weight and that's quite good but the subcutaneous fat is in an odd area for an omega." Leslie shakes her head and looks back to him. Jason blinks overly bright eyes at her and shivers when she rests her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers feel like ice. "He's obviously having a heat; that's not the question here. It's the severity of his symptoms I'm concerned over."

He can almost feel Bruce's disapproval seeping over him in waves. "Late onset heats are typically more severe, from what I've read. He's scented as an omega since before he lived with me."

"Never strongly," Leslie argues fiercely. "Never like this. I thought it was due to malnutrition but perhaps a more thorough exploration is in order." 

"I'm okay," Jason slurs, exhausted and wanting to go back to sleep and hoping the older omega doesn't notice that he's wet beneath his blankets. He feels absolutely disgusting. He doesn't blame Bruce for wanting to be as far away from him as possible. "I promise I'll hurry up and finish." He doesn't want anything more thorough. He doesn't want Doc Thompkins finding something worse wrong with him and Bruce removing him from being Robin or, worse, removing him from the house. 

"I'll have him on suppressants as soon as he's done," Bruce says and it sounds like a promise. "Just give him something to tide him over for right now."

Jason drifts after that. He knows the doctor warns him she's going to give him a couple of injections but he doesn't feel the sting of the needle and he doesn't see it clearly enough to panic. He dreams of his mother, of his father screaming at her during one of her heats, telling her the only thing she was good for was between her legs. He remembers her getting fired from being a waitress, or a secretary, or a bartender, because of the unpredictability of her heats and how she couldn't show up for work during them. He doesn't want to be useless. He doesn't want to be fired. 

It's agony, and it's five solid days of it. Jason tears through the supply of food in his room when he's aware enough to do so, eating until he makes himself sick. He rolls around with his legs pressed tightly together and refuses to touch himself. He doesn't want to get used to it. He can last through this, he tells himself. Out wait his hormones and Bruce will fix them. Bruce will make him how he's supposed to be. 

At last the heat lifts. Alfred has to coax him out of his room and Jason's taken enough showers that his skin is raw. His room is freezing since he's opened his windows to the winter air. He doesn't want the scent of his heat lingering on anything. He feels sick again even thinking about Bruce or Dick or Alfred mentioning what's happening. 

"You will get an injection every month," Bruce informs him when he finally makes it down to the Cave. He's grateful, so grateful, that he hasn't been benched. "When you begin to react to the injection, you will stop and have a heat. Then we will repeat the process." 

"No," Jason whispers. Bruce looks surprised so Jason rushes on. "No, I don't want just a shot. I want more. I don't want to have a heat again." _Ever_ again. "A girl in my Spanish class said she keeps taking her pills and doesn't get hers. Can I do that? I want to do that." Please, please let Bruce have heard of that. Samantha is going to be the valedictorian. Samantha has perfect attendance, unlike most omegas. Jason isn't shooting for that, but he doesn't want to miss out on a moment of being Robin. 

Bruce looks at him. Bruce looks pleased. Jason's heart soars in his chest. Bruce is proud of this decision and Bruce is going to give him what he wants. "The injections will be a failsafe," Bruce answers. "But I will find you some suppressants to take daily. You'll probably stop scenting as an omega for the most part." 

Jason shrugs. That won't bother him. Omegas are small and weak. Being an omega is what got his mom so behind on the rent. It's what made the alphas in their neighborhood start circling. When Jason had started smelling like one, it was the worst day of his life. They didn't care if he hadn't had a heat, as long as he smelled right. All reward with an omega who wasn't fertile, they said. None of the risk. 

Jason gets an injection that day. By the next month he's practiced enough that Alfred lets it give him to himself with supervision. The needle goes into his hip, not his arm. He can stand it that way. He knows Bruce is glad that he doesn't need any scheduled time off. He's as available to him as Dick was, able to fight crime at a moment's notice. He doesn't have to be sequestered in his room every so often. He doesn't have to be ashamed at school when he comes back after an absence of a few days because it's never because he had a heat. 

He sees Doc Thompkins again for a school physical. He likes her a lot. They chat amiably about his classes and about how boring Bruce's parties are as she examines him. Then she asks him to take off his pants. 

"There's nothing wrong with being an omega," She tells him when he staunchly refuses to disrobe for her. "It's an amazing ability, Jason. You can grow life inside you. I won't hurt you. After your heat I just would like to be certain everything developed correctly."

Jason doesn't point out that she never grew a life inside her, but he wants to. That's not an ability. That's a liability. He never wants anything like that inside of him. He never wants to have a heat again. 

"He's fine, Leslie," Bruce tells her tiredly when his lecture refuses to get Jason to comply with her request either. "He will let you know if there are any problems. Right, Jay-lad?"

Jason won't, but he agrees. Whatever gets him out with his dignity intact. Bruce approves of what he's doing. He knows Bruce approves. Jason can't be an alpha for him, but at least he won't be an omega. 

It's years later that Talia shows him pictures. Talia gives him a half-shredded, blood-stained scarf that smells of Gotham and omega and Jason knows what Bruce replaced him with. An alpha like Dick he would forgive. Another omega was inexcusable. When he'd realized that the new Robin was off every few months, it was a knife to the heart. He didn't take Robin seriously. He didn't want to be out there. He couldn't, if he took that time off like clockwork. 

It's not that he hates omegas. Sexually they are actually what he prefers. 

He's sleeping with Tim by the time he learns not to begrudge him his secondary sex. He hears raised voices before he even gets into the safehouse Tim has them meeting at. "I'm sorry my body is more important than your mission!" Tim snarls into the phone and Jason knows he's not sorry at all. "I can't float the pills for another month, B. I'm already missing so much that it's making me no good to you. I'm almost a liability. I'll be back in two days." He hangs up. Jason makes sure he gets off extra good that night for being such a thorn in Batman's side. 

It's a weird thought that there's at least this one thing that has Bruce wishing Tim were more like Jason. 

It doesn't stop him from continuing his drug regimen. He's graduated from injections to implants. He still takes enough pills that it's a miracle his heart does explode each month. He never feels even the beginnings of heat and he'll call that success with his drug regimen. 

It's the one thing he's decided for himself. He's not going to let anything take that away from him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason's time with Talia was no cakewalk, even when it should have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of violence and underage sex. There is a semi-graphic description of a medical exam and blood is mentioned pretty frequently, as well as sexual organs and sexism by alphas against omegas. 
> 
> Part two of Jason coming to terms with being an omega, post Lazarus Pit. Reviews are loved. Kudos and bookmarks equally as appreciated. I'll try to get to comments in a timely manner. Thanks for following along~! Update to the main storyline next week.

"You're bleeding," Talia points out sedately when all the men in the room lie dead around them. 

Jason touches his arm where he knows a bullet nicked him. There is blood on his fingers, but hardly enough to be noticeable. Not enough for him to actually care about. "Just a graze."

Talia's green eyes, that would be pretty if they weren't so fucking cold, slide down his body. She's not looking at his arm as the source of blood. Jason feels it then. The tackiness of his pants, the gush of blood from inside him. 

There's no shame in being an Omega. Talia, ridiculous alpha that she is, even, had told him that. But when he'd been conscious and aware enough to ask for suppressants she had provided them in the dosages and combinations he'd asked for without any debate at all. In a way, Jason knows she cares more for his appeasement than his well being but he likes the control. He appreciates she doesn't tell him what to do. 

But this blood isn't any kind of normal tell in his cycle. He's current on the drugs he takes to control it. They can't have suddenly gone bad. He reaches down to the back of his pants where he's bled into them; the blood is cold. He's been bleeding a while. The scent is almost negligible in this room.  He's surrounded by dead men, and all of them went down bleeding.

"Perhaps you should sit," Talia suggests calmly. She's watching him warily, but Jason doesn't feel any alarm from her. All the assassins are on suppressants when they are in the field unless there's a particular reason to not be. Jason finds the lack of scent soothing. She has her cell phone out and is punching in a few numbers. He wonders how she gets reception here. Wherever here is. It's certainly the middle of nowhere in some godforsaken swampland and Jason is already not looking forward to the trek back out of here. 

To be paired with Talia probably should have been an honor. He knows it's only so she can watch him closely. So she can evaluate his progress and send him on to his next teacher. "I'm fine," He argues. Fine except for the disgusting sensation of blood seeping from him. He shifts a bit, tenses his abdominals, and that only makes it worse. "Sit," Talia orders again, more harshly, as another gush of bright red blood stains his pants. Jason really should be more embarrassed but it's just him and Talia in a base with some corpses now. 

Jason doesn't sit. At least, he doesn't remember sitting because he passes out. 

~*~*~

When he comes to, there's a warming blanket thrown over his legs and his teeth are chattering. They're in the back of a truck and the lurch roll of the vehicle have his stomach clenching dangerously. Talia sits near his head, but no one is touching him. He can appreciate that fact. 

Another woman is in the back of the truck with them, pressed against the bench anchored into the side. She frowns at Talia and babbles something in a language that Jason can't quite catch but he recognizes the word for 'miscarriage' in a questioning and sympathetic tone. Not an assassin, then. Not one of them. He's not sure he's one of them. 

"No," Talia replies with an easy shrug. She pats Jason's shoulder like he's a serviceable animal instead of like she's trying to be comforting. The next phrase he knows translates to "This one won't breed." It's a statement he'd found hilarious. He finds it even better used in the literal sense instead of the more common invocation when an omega was being difficult. He'd argued that omegas were actually _more_ difficult when they were bred but Talia had simply sighed and rolled her eyes. Even now she's not saying that his refusal to mate or breed is a problem, just that he himself is the problem. 

It's reassuring. Enough that he can doze through the journey to wherever Talia is taking him. 

~*~*~

It turns out to be a clinic. It even looks rather reputable. Dragged out of the truck and leaning against Talia despite his willpower to stand upright on his own, Jason looks from the brightly lit hallway beyond the door to Talia, and back again. 

"Please," Talia says. "I do have more than backwater witchdoctors at my disposal. Do give me some credit." 

"Well," He grits out as they go inside. "Your last little medical marvel was throwing me in a pit of magical green goo so..." 

She hushes him. The clinic is largely deserted and Jason realizes it's basically the middle of the night local time. They pass a nurse who ignores him so he must not be about to drop dead. Talia lets him lean against a cinderblock wall that feels like ice despite the tropical climate while she has a quiet discussion with the woman sitting on the other side of the half-window. Not a receptionist, Jason thinks. 

He's tired. He's probably sick. It's why he doesn't protest when he's ushered into an exam room. There's no paperwork to fill out. There's no identification he has to present. He appreciates all of these things. More than he appreciates being told to strip, and helped when he can't do it by himself. Talia stands across the room, arms crossed beneath her breasts, frown on her face. Jason doesn't know if she's worrying for him or thinks he should apologize for his weakness. 

The underwear are completely soaked through with blood. The clots have dried to his skin and he grimaces as they rip at hair and sensitive skin when pulled away with fabric. The pants probably can't be salvaged either. The assistant helping him hands him a wet cloth and gestures between his legs like he can't understand what she's saying. He hasn't been answering her gentle murmurings and soothing statements; she probably thinks he doesn't understand her. 

Jason wipes the blood he can. The nurse puts him on the table and starts to extend the stirrups from the bottom. "No," Jason replies flatly. "No. We're not doing that." 

"Jason," Talia says sharply. His real name, not that it means anything here. "While I admire your tenacity and ability to survive nearly anything, this is not a wound you can simply pack with bandaging. Something is very wrong with you."

Something's been wrong with him a long time. Ever since he presented. Since he got his first heat. But a new trickle of blood sliding down his thigh has him admitting, if only to himself, that he at least needs to get it checked out. He hasn't gotten and bad vibes from anyone at this clinic. And, honestly, he really had been expecting some medicine woman in a shack over the bright lights of a sterile clinic. He's not sure which he prefers, but he kind of likes how cold and impersonal this all feels. 

He puts his feet in the stirrups. He doesn't think of how he refused to do that for a nicer doctor in Gotham. He also doesn't think of how Bruce never made him, despite the advice being to do so. Talia doesn't look away. Talia doesn't seem to care what parts of him are on display now. 

The doctor is a small man (but so many people are small with Jason growing so fast) in his early forties. "Having some omega troubles?" He offers cheerfully as he washes his hands. His eyes widen slightly as he notices how much blood there is. Jason wonders what he thought he was here for if not something urgent. He orders the nurse to do some blood tests. Jason doesn't even feel the sting of the needle, he keeps his gaze averted. 

The exam is painful. The doctor moves from one task to another. Fingers inside him, a mention of scar tissue and an apology as his hand presses on Jason's belly. Jason stares at the ceiling, or at the man, and disassociates. It's probably blood-loss and the beginnings of shock at this point. "Suppressants," The doctor says at last. "How long have you taken them?"

"Years," Jason answers back automatically. Did dying detox you? There's also an unsettling blank patch in his memory and he doesn't know if he'd had a heat then or if some kind soul had drugged him before he went on a rampage into the streets of Gotham. 

The doctor frowns. The speculum goes in, but not without some serious effort. Jason flinches, winces, his knuckles go white gripping the table underneath him. But he knows this is something else to endure to get the blood to stop. It's maybe two minutes that the doctor looks at him. It feels like hours.

"Toxicity," The doctor announces. He glances to Talia but he looks more at Jason and Jason is glad that he wants to talk to him instead of just the one paying the bills. Still, it's clear by now this man is on Talia's payroll. "Suppressants have built up in your system. Go off them." 

"Unacceptable," Talia says at the same time Jason starts to protest. 

That gives the doctor some confusion about who he should be addressing. He's probably suspicious at an alpha bringing a young omega bleeding into his clinic in the middle of the night. "The tissues are inflamed. There was something wrong to begin with and the drugs are only doing more damage. It has to be stopped." 

Jason has always known there's something wrong with him. Flawed. Imperfect. He had wished to not be an omega all his life, but especially when Bruce adopted him. Something wrong with his insides. He even had to make his negative attributes even worse. "I won't stop them," Jason replies. "So give me something else." 

Talia nods her approval, or her consent, or her willingness to pay for it. Jason isn't certain but it works. "I'm going to cauterize the bleeding while we wait for blood results," The doctor tells him. "This will be painful." 

Jason shrugs. "As long as it stops the bleeding," He agrees. 

"You could be barren," The doctor cautions. "Could get an infection. Could ruin your heats."

"He doesn't care," Talia cuts him off. "Do it." 

With the smell of his burning flesh in the air and little pricks of pain from a part of him he doesn't think about, Jason isn't sure if he cares. He's always rebelled at decisions being made for him and yet he's giving his control over to Talia. He drifts. He's grateful for that, but still hyper aware when anyone else approaches between his spread legs. 

It doesn't hurt as much as the doctor said it would. Scar tissue or something. Jason doesn't absorb that information either. As long as he has suppressants and he's not bleeding, he's fine. 

The doctor even gives him a pair of scrub pants to wear out the door. He's been shot up with antibiotics and he has a little baggie of other drugs. There's a soft pad of gauze between his legs for any burned remnants of tissue to fall into. 

"Did I pass your tests?" Jason asks Talia when they're alone. He's killed for her. He's spread his legs for her. He's obeyed her every whim. 

She ruffles his hair fondly. "You'll never breed," She tells him. 

 _Never._ He promises himself. 


End file.
